‘We Think of Hanan Ashrawi Only as a Palestinian’
marwan
- August 18, 2026
This is my third post highlighting remarkable Christian Arabs whose lives and achievements have made a lasting impact.
Today, I’d like to recognize Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian Christian woman whose voice has been heard around the world.
Born Hanan Daoud Mikhael in Nablus, Palestine, in 1946, she grew up in a Christian family and spent much of her childhood in Ramallah—the town where I was born!
Dr. Ashrawi is an educator, scholar, political leader, diplomat, human-rights advocate, and mother. She earned degrees from the American University of Beirut and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
She taught at Birzeit University, where she became chair of the English Department and later Dean of the Faculty of Arts.
Dr. Ashrawi is also an author. She has written about Palestinian politics, culture, literature, occupation, and the peace process. Her memoir, This Side of Peace: A Personal Account, recounts her political involvement and her experiences representing Palestinians during an important period in their history.
Dr. Ashrawi became internationally known during the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, where she served as a spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation. She helped bring Palestinian history, rights, and the desire for self-determination directly to an international audience.
Dr. Ashrawi also helped establish MIFTAH, an organization that promotes human rights, democracy, good government, and the participation of women and young people in Palestinian society. Interestingly, miftah means “key” in Arabic, which is an important symbol because it represents the homes and villages lost during the Nakba in 1948. When hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled during the war, many families took their house keys with them, believing they would soon return. In many cases, they were never allowed to go back. So, the key or miftah came to symbolize home, memory, displacement, and hope, and a claimed right of return.
What makes her story especially meaningful to me is that she is a Palestinian Christian woman from the land where Christianity began. Palestinian Christians have very deep roots in the Holy Land and have contributed to its faith, history, culture, education, and public life since the earliest days of Christianity, when Jesus walked this earth.
For decades, Hanan Ashrawi has used education, diplomacy, public service, writing, and advocacy to share the Palestinian story with the world. She will turn 80 on October 8, 2026, and continues to speak and write about Palestinian rights, peace, and political reform.
She broke barriers for Palestinian women and became one of the most recognizable Palestinian voices on the international stage.
Her story deserves to be known.
